Publications - Trauma and Resiliency

“Soldiers who have insomnia before deployment may be more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or experience suicidal thoughts than service members who don’t struggle to sleep before they deploy, a U.S. study suggests.
For the study, researchers surveyed U.S. Army soldiers one to two months before they deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, right after they returned from deployment, and again three months and nine months later.
Soldiers who experienced insomnia in the 30 days prior to deployment were more than three times more likely to experience PTSD and more than twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts after their return than peers who didn’t have sleep difficulties at the start of the study.
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“Massachusetts residents who need health care are colliding with a hard reality: Having medical insurance doesn’t guarantee you can get treatment, particularly for psychiatric problems. More than half of adults who sought mental health or addiction treatment in recent months had difficulty getting that care, according to a survey of 2,201 residents by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation in Boston...The obstacle wasn’t a lack of insurance; the vast majority of patients were insured. Rather, the problem was that providers either did not accept their insurance or their practices were closed to new patients.
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“US Customs and Border Protection reports that, between 2010 and 2017, officers with the agency intercepted roughly 300,000 unaccompanied children. Many had at least one parent or a relative already living in the United States — these young people came to be reunited with family. But, that reunification is rarely as easy or joyful as the children or their parents expect, at least initially, say researchers and therapists who work with these families. Years of separation, a history of grief and trauma, and the stresses of suddenly having to adapt to a new culture often get in the way. And the cost of unhappiness at home can be high for such youth. They may be be at a higher risk of depression, anxiety and substance-abuse, says Rachel Osborn, a licensed social worker at Mary's Center, a health clinic in Washington, D.C. And an unhappy family life can make it even less likely that those who are struggling in school will complete their education.
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“Survivors of traumatic brain injuries may be more than twice as likely to die by suicide as individuals without a history of injuries like concussions or skull fractures, a research review suggests...The current analysis focused on concussions and mild traumatic brain injuries and found these events associated with an elevated risk of suicidal thoughts and attempted suicides in addition to suicide deaths. While the exact reason for this connection isn’t clear, it’s possible that concussions and mild traumatic brain injuries lead to lasting changes in regions of the brain associated with regulating mood and decision making, the study authors note.
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“The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services may now allow for states to pursue Medicaid reimbursements for short-term inpatient treatment in mental health facilities despite a decades-old exclusion, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced Tuesday.
In a letter to state Medicaid directors, CMS detailed a new Medicaid waiver opportunity through which states may bypass longstanding reimbursement restrictions on inpatient psychiatric treatment, which apply to mental health facilities with more than 16 beds. Azar said the original policy has posed a "significant barrier" to people getting the treatments they need.
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“Women can experience lingering health problems years after workplace sexual harassment or sexual assault, a new study finds. These health problems can include high blood pressure, poor-quality sleep, anxiety and symptoms of depression, the researchers found after doing medical exams of about 300 women. 'There is a clear correlation between the experience of sexual harassment or sexual assault for a woman and adverse effects on her life, be they physical or mental health consequences,' said Maureen Sayres Van Niel, a women’s psychiatrist practicing in Cambridge, Mass., and president of the American Psychiatric Association Women’s Caucus. She was not involved with the study.
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“When researchers first discovered a link in the late 1990s between childhood adversity and chronic health problems later in life, the real revelation was how common those experiences were across all socioeconomic groups...People with low-income and educational attainment, people of color and people who identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual had significantly higher chance of having experienced adversity in childhood. The study finds three out of five adults across the U.S. had at least one adverse experience in their childhood, such as divorce, a parent's death, physical or emotional abuse, or a family member's incarceration or substance abuse problem. A quarter of adults have at least three such experiences in childhood, which – according to other research — increases their risk for most common chronic diseases, from heart disease and cancer to depression and substance abuse...Those identifying as black or Latino and those with less than a high school education or an annual income below $15,000 were more likely to have more ACEs. But a relatively new finding was that multiracial and gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals carried the greatest burden.
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“Traumatic brain injury is the leading cause of death and disabilityin young adults in the developed world. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24. Though the reasons for any particular suicide are often inscrutable, research published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that at least a fraction of the blame could be placed on traumatic brain injuries....'Individuals with mild TBI, with concussion, had an elevated suicide risk by 81 percent,' said Trine Madsen of the Danish Research Institute of Suicide Prevention, one of the authors of the study. 'But individuals with severe TBI had a higher suicide risk that was more than double [the risk of someone with no TBI].'
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“New findings add to the growing body of evidence suggesting that psychedelic drugs may be effective at treating a variety of psychological disorders, including depression, social anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and could one day be prescribed to patients...'Combined with psychotherapy, some psychedelic drugs like MDMA, psilocybin and ayahuasca may improve symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder,' said Cristina L. Magalhaes, PhD, of Alliant International University Los Angeles, and co-chair of a symposium on psychedelics and psychotherapy.
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“Many veterans and active-duty service members use psychiatric service dogs to help alleviate the everyday challenges of PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury and Military Sexual Trauma — conditions that service dog advocates call "invisible injuries." Now, the service dog community is eyeing a dog certification system to streamline travel and leisure for veterans who, like Crowell, are frustrated with the arduous process and stigmas attached to taking trips.
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“The first few weeks after a hospital discharge are the most critical for teens who were admitted for suicidal thoughts. A new study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, reveals that participating in an intervention program followed by the use of a personalized app, called BRITE, can significantly reduce suicide attempts in teens after they return home...'This approach merits further study,' Kennard said. 'Focusing on stress tolerance and giving access to positive emotion could be a lifesaving difference for so many patients.'
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“Child abuse is known to repeat itself from generation to generation. Although not universal, the children of people with addictions are at higher risk of all types of abuse, and of developing addictions. The reasons why people who were sexually abused in childhood go on to have abusive relationships in adulthood, either as an abuser or as a victim, are complex and well documented. But is breaking the cycle of child abuse possible? Or does the experience of child abuse mean that abusive relationships are inevitable?
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“Parents who faced severe trauma and stress in their own childhood are more likely to see behavioral health problems in their children, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics...The findings reveal that the children of parents who themselves had four or more adverse childhood experiences were at double the risk of having attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and were four times more likely to have mental health problems. In addition, a mother’s childhood experiences had a stronger adverse effect on a child’s behavioral health than the father’s experiences.
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“"This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents. Their heart rate goes up. Their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Those stress hormones can start killing off dendrites — the little branches in brain cells that transmit mes­sages. In time, the stress can start killing off neurons and — especially in young children — wreaking dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and to the physical structure of the brain. 'The effect is catastrophic,” said Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. “There’s so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this.'"
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Disclaimer: Material on the William James INTERFACE Referral Service website is intended as general information. It is not a recommendation for treatment, nor should it be considered medical or mental health advice. The William James INTERFACE Referral Service urges families to discuss all information and questions related to medical or mental health care with a health care professional.